Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

My toddler LOVES bananas. I mean he would eat them all day long if I let him, which is not necessarily a good thing. I mean most of us know what the BRAT (Bananas, Rice, Apples and Toast) diet will do to a person! So, every so often I have to commandeer the bananas. Unfortunately, in order to avoid the arguments over having another banana, I always hide them out of sight. Which, is really bad because, with so much going on, I'm on of those people that if it's out of sight, it's out of mind!  So, more often than not, I end up with either very black bananas or furry ones!

I would make banana bread with them but seriously, how many times a month can you eat banana bread?! I could dehydrate them and save them as snacks but, no one in the house will eat a crunchy banana! So, I brainstormed for a while and then remembered a recipe I read a while back from one of my favorite bloggers. I mean my FAVORITE! I have never shared him before, like I could keep him all to myself and then I wouldn't have to share him! :D I think he's only got about 1000 followers now, well more really, so my dream of keeping him all to myself is sadly....well, just sad! So, I have to share him now because these cookies are great, although, I made a slight alteration or two to the recipe. I hope Garret forgives me for it! (yeah, he'll never find this blog but, just in case!)

Garrett's Grandmother's Banana Cookies

This is Garrett's picture. 

Ingredients:
1/2cps of unsalted butter, room temp.
1cp of sugar
1 egg, room temp
1 cp mashed bananas
1tsp baking soda
2cps flour
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp ea. of ground cinnamon, ground cloves, mace or nutmeg
Optional - 1cp pecans, walnuts or chocolate chips or mix and match

** I added a little more clove and cinnamon to my batch (almost a tsp each of both). I also added just shy of 1tsp of vanilla. 
Vanilla makes any cookie taste better right?! :) I also didn't have an unsalted butter around for once, so I used regular. I simply had to forgo the salt. 




Directions: 
Preheat the oven to 350 degree F. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until well mixed. 


Mix the mashed bananas and baking soda in a bowl and let sit for 2 minutes to froth a bit, this gives the cookies their rise. 

Mix banana mix and butter mix together. Combine the flour, salt and spices, then mix into the wet mix, until just combined.

Fold in your pecans, chocolate chips or whatever you chose as an optional ingredient. Then dollop onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 11 - 13 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Then remove them to cool on a wire wrack.

**Sidenote here: You can use that nonstick foil to line your pan but, there is a reason Garrett says to use parchment paper. Even with the foil, these cookies are soo cake-like and moist that they actually stick a little to the foil. If you're careful and give them a minute, you can remove them with no issue. I learned this the hard way the first time I made these!

These are mine. Not bad looking, nothing like his but, still not bad! 

I swear these are seriously the best banana cookies ever! I stay away from nuts because of allergy issues but, I HAVE to put chocolate chips in there! Though I will say, these cookies could stand on their own without a nut or chip in it. 


Here is Garrett's blog because you quite literally have to check it out! When I post this to Facebook, I will of course include his page on there as well because he really is an amazing baker, chef, food lover and I seriously love his humor and outlook a lot of the time.